Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 3

And I said - God’s love for us is the great stimulus, compelling force, and enlivener of His creature’s love. Micah had just spoken of God’s love for Israel: how He would gather them into one fold under One Shepherd, guard them, lead them, remove all difficulties before them, be Himself their Head, and enable them to follow Him.

He then turns to them. These are God’s doings; this, God has in store for you in the future. Even when mercy itself shall require chastisement, He does not cast off forever. The desolation is but the forerunner of future mercy.

What then do you do? The prophet appeals to them, class by class. There was a general corruption of every order of men through whom Judah could be preserved: princes (Micah 3:1–4), prophets (Micah 3:5–7), and priests (Micah 3:11).

The salt had lost its savor; with what could it be seasoned? By what means could the decaying mass of the people be kept from entire corruption?

Hear, I urge you, O heads of Jacob, and you princes of the house of Israel - He arraigns them by the same name under which He had first promised mercy. He had first promised mercy to all Jacob and the remnant of Israel. So now he upbraids the “heads of Jacob, and the princes of the house of Israel,” lest they should deceive themselves.

At the same time, he recalls them to the deeds of their father. Judah had succeeded to the birthright, forfeited by Reuben, Simeon, and Levi; and in Judah, all the promises of the Messiah were laid up. But Judah was not like the three great patriarchs: the father of the faithful (Abraham), the meek Isaac, or the much-tried Jacob. The name 'Jacob' or 'Israel' then did not have the same reminiscences or force of appeal as did the titles 'seed of Abraham,' 'seed of Isaac,' or 'seed of Israel.'

Is it not for you to know judgment? - It is a great increase of guilt when persons neglect or pervert what it is their special duty and office to guard; as when teachers corrupt doctrine, or preachers give in to a low standard of morals, or judges pervert judgment.

The “princes” spoken of here are so named from judging, that is, “deciding” causes. They are the same as the “rulers” whom Isaiah, at the same time, upbraids as being, because of their sins, rulers of Sodom, whose hands were full of blood (Isaiah 1:15). Those who do not do what is right, in time, largely cease to know it.

As God withdraws His grace, the mind is darkened and can no longer see it. So it is said of Eli’s sons, they were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD (1 Samuel 2:12); and, Into a malicious soul Wisdom shall not enter, nor dwell in a body that is subject unto sin . Such people “do not attain to know the judgments of God, which are a great deep; and the evil mind does not find the depth of His justice.” But if people will not “know judgment” by doing it, they shall know it by suffering it.

Who hate the good and love the evil - that is, they hate, for its own sake, that which is good, and love that which is evil. The prophet is not here speaking of their “hating good” men, or “loving evil” men, but of their hating goodness and loving wickedness. “It is sin not to love good; what guilt to hate it! It is faulty, not to flee from evil, what ungodliness to love it!”

Man, at first, loves and admires the good, even while he does not do it; he hates the evil, even while he does it, or as soon as he has done it. But man cannot bear to be at strife with his conscience, and so he ends it by excusing himself and telling lies to himself. And then, he hates the truth or good with a bitter hatred, because it disturbs the darkness of the false peace with which he would envelop himself.

At first, men love only the pleasure connected with the evil; then they make whomever they can evil, because goodness is a reproach to them: in the end, they love evil for its own sake (Romans 1:32). Pagan morality also distinguished between the incontinent and the unprincipled, the man who sinned under force of temptation, and the man who had lost the sense of right and wrong (John 3:20). “Everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light. Whoever longs for things unlawful, hates the righteousness which rebukes and punishes.”

Who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones - He had described the Good Shepherd; now, in contrast, he describes those who ought to be “shepherds of the people,” to feed, guard, and direct them, but who were their butchers; who did not shear them, but flayed them; who fed on them, not fed them. He heaps up their guilt, act by act. First they flay, that is, take away their outer goods; then they break their bones in pieces, the most solid parts on which the whole frame of their body depends, to get at the very marrow of their life and so feed themselves upon them.

And not unlike, though still more fearfully, do they sin, who first remove the skin, as it were, or outward tender fences of God’s graces (such as modesty, in regard to inward purity; outward demeanor, of inward virtue; and outward forms, of inward devotion), and so break the strong bones of the sterner virtues which hold the whole soul together; and with them the whole flesh, or softer graces, becomes one shapeless mass, shred to pieces and consumed. So Ezekiel says: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves; should not the shepherds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed, ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened ...” (Ezekiel 34:2–4).

Then shall they cry unto the Lord – "Then." The prophet looks forward to the Day of the Lord, which is always before his mind. So the Psalmist, speaking of a time or place not expressed, says, There were they in great fear (Psalms 53:5).

He sees it and points to it, seeing what those to whom he spoke did not see, and all the more dreadfully because he saw with superhuman (certain) vision what was hidden from their eyes. The "then" was not then, "in the time of grace," but when the day of grace would be over, and the Day of Judgment would have come.

So concerning that day, when judgment would begin, God says in Jeremiah, Behold I will bring evil upon them which they shall not be able to go forth of, and they will cry unto Me, and I will not hearken unto them (Jeremiah 11:11). And David says, They cried and there was none to save; unto the Lord, and He answered them not (Psalms 18:41). And Solomon says, Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he shall cry himself and shall not be heard (Proverbs 21:13).

And James says, He shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy (James 2:13). Prayer is never too late until judgment comes. The day of grace is over when the time of judgment has arrived. "They shall cry to the Lord and shall not be heard, because they too did not hear those who asked them; and the Lord shall turn His Face from them, because they too turned their face from those who implored them."

He will even hide His Face – He will not look in mercy on those who would not receive His look of grace. Your sins, He says by Isaiah, have hid His face from you, that He heareth not. O what will that turning away of the Face be, on which eternity hangs!

As – There is a proportion between the sin and the punishment. As it is said, As I have done, so God hath requited me. The verse states, They have behaved themselves ill in their doings; literally, they have made their deeds evil. The word rendered "doings" is almost always used in a bad sense, meaning mighty deeds, and so deeds done with a high hand.

Not ignorantly or negligently, nor through human frailty, but with set purpose they applied themselves, not to amend but to corrupt their doings and make them worse. God called to them by all His prophets, make good your doings (Jeremiah 35:15); and they, reversing it, used diligence to make their doings evil.

Jerome says: "All this they shall suffer, because they were not rulers, but tyrants; not Prefects, but lions; not masters of disciples, but wolves of sheep. And they sated themselves with flesh and were fattened, and, as sacrifices for the slaughter, were made ready for the punishment of the Lord."

Thus far this was against evil rulers; then he turns to the false prophets and evil teachers, who by flatteries subvert the people of God, promising them the knowledge of His word.

The prophets that make My people err - Flattering them in their sins and rebellions, promising that they shall go unpunished, that God is not so strict, and will not put in force the judgments He threatens. So Isaiah says (Isaiah 3:12): O My people, they who lead you, mislead you; and (Isaiah 9:16, and Isaiah 9:15 in Hebrew), the leaders of this people are its misleaders, and they that are led by them are destroyed. And Jeremiah says, “The prophets have seen for you vanity and folly; and they have not discovered your iniquity to turn away your captivity, and have seen for you false burdens and causes of banishment” (Lamentations 2:14). No error is hopeless, except what is taught in the Name of God.

That bite with their mouths - The word is used of no other biting than the biting of serpents. They were doing real, secret evil “while they cry, that is, proclaim peace;” they bit, as serpents, treacherously, deadly. They fed, not so much on the gifts for which they hired themselves to speak peace when there was no peace (Ezekiel 13:10), as on the souls of the givers. So God says by Ezekiel, “Will you pollute Me among My people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to My people that hear your lies? Because with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life—therefore you shall see no more vanity nor divine divinations” (Ezekiel 19:1–14, 22-23). It was with a show of peace that Joab slew Abner and Amasa, and with a kiss of peace Judas betrayed our Lord.

And he that puts not into their mouths, they prepare war against him - Literally, and (that is, immediately; it was all one; bribes refused, war proclaimed) “they sanctify war against him.” Like those of whom Joel prophesied, they proclaim war against him in the Name of God, by the authority of God which they had taken to themselves, speaking in His Name who had not sent them.

So when our Lord fed the multitude, they would take Him by force and make Him a king; when their hopes were gone and they saw that His Kingdom was not of this world, they said, Crucify Him, crucify Him. Much more the Pharisees, who, because He rebuked their covetousness, their devouring widows’ houses, their extortion and excess, their making their proselytes more children of hell than themselves, said, You blaspheme.

So, when the masters of the possessed girl whom Paul freed (Acts 16:19–21) saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they accused him that he exceedingly troubled their city, teaching customs not lawful to be received.

So Christians were persecuted by pagans as “hating the human race,” because they would not partake of their sins; as “atheists,” because they did not worship their gods; as “disloyal” and “public enemies,” because they did not join in unholy festivals; as “unprofitable,” because they neglected things not profitable but harmful.

So men are now called “illiberal,” who will not take liberties with the truth of God; “intolerant,” who will not allow that all faith is a matter of opinion, and that there is no certain truth; “precise,” “censorious,” who will not connive at sin, or allow the levity which plays, mothlike, around it and jests at it. The Church and the Gospel are against the world, and so the world which they condemn must be against them; and such is the force of truth and holiness, that it must carry on the war against them in their own name.

Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision - In the presence of God’s extreme judgments, even deceivers are eventually still; silenced at last by the common misery, if not by awe. The false prophets had promised peace, light, brightness, prosperity; the night of trouble, anguish, darkness, fear, will come upon them. So they will no longer dare to speak in the Name of God, while He was, by His judgments, speaking the contrary in a way that all must hear.

They abused God’s gifts and long-suffering against Himself; they could misinterpret His long-suffering as favor, and they did so. Their visions of the future were only the reflections of the present and its continuation. They thought that because God was enduring, He was indifferent. Consequently, they took His government out of His hands and said that what He appeared to be now, He would always be.

They had no other light, no other foresight. Then, when the darkness of temporal calamity enveloped them, it shrouded in one common darkness of night all present brightness and all sight of the future.

Rup.: “After Caiaphas had in heart spoken falsehood and a prophecy of blood, although God overruled it to truth which he did not intend, all grace of prophecy departed (Matthew 11:13). The law and the prophets prophesied until John. “The Sun of Righteousness went down over them,” inwardly and outwardly, withdrawing the brightness of His Providence and the inward light of grace.”

So Christ Himself forewarned, Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you (John 12:35). And so it has remained ever since (2 Corinthians 3:15). The veil has been on their hearts. The light is in all the world, but they do not see it; it arose to lighten the Gentiles, but they still walk on in darkness.

As opposed to holiness, truth, knowledge, divine enlightening of the mind, and bright gladness, conversely darkness is falsehood, sin, error, blindness of soul, ignorance of divine things, and sorrow.

In all these ways, the Sun went down “over them,” so that the darkness weighed heavily upon them.

So too, the inventors of heresies pretend to see and to enter into the mysteries of Christ, yet they find darkness instead of light. They lose even what they think they see and fail even concerning the truth they seem most to hold. They will be in night and darkness, being cast into outer darkness (1 Corinthians 8:12); sinning against the brethren and wounding their weak conscience, those for whom Christ died.